Dharamendra Pradhan, the minister of state for petroleum & natural gas, said National Oil Companies (NOCs) - ONGC and Oil India (OIL) have identified 56 petroleum exploration lease (PEL)/ petroleum mining lease (PML) blocks (ONGC 50, and OIL - 6)  under the first phase of assessment of shale gas and oil, exploration and exploitation.

These blocks are located in the states of Assam (7 blocks), Arunachal Pradesh (1 block), Gujarat (28 blocks), Rajasthan (1 block), Andhra Pradesh (10 blocks) and Tamil Nadu (9 blocks).

ONGC has drilled one well where coring has been completed. In addition, ONGC has collected cores from another 7 wells.